Do Catholics Practice Divination by Asking the Saints for Intercession?

To begin answering this question let's be clear that the Roman Catholic Church condems divination, spiritism, and necromancy. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) we read:

"All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil' the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human being, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone." (CCC 2116)

The Church teaches that the First Commandment (I am the Lord thy God, thou shall not have strange gods before me) does not forbid us to honor the saints in heaven, provided we do not give them the honor due to God alone (My Catholic Faith, CCC 2116).

So what gives? Is the Church in total contradiction of Herself when She teaches one thing and seemingly in appearances does another? The answer is that the Church is right on both accounts - divination is to be rejected, praying for the intercession of the Saints is to be embraced. The Church makes a clear distinction about who it is Catholics pray to when asking for intercession from the saints. Praying to the saints is really petitioning God's power through an intercessor who likewise subjects himself or herself to God's almighty power (see the St. Michael Prayer). Divination or necromancy on the other hand, is conjuring souls from the underworld whose influence is from another source. The Catholic understands that any assistance from the saints and angels is from the power of God and God alone, linking this practice to the central belief of Christianity: our hope in the Resurrection to someday be united with our true family in Heaven adoring God alone.

The Church teaches that the veneration we pay to the saints does not in the least detract from the honor due to God, for we only reverence the saints for God's sake. By no means do we reverence them in the way that we reverence God, but only because they are servants of God (The Catechism Explained). The saints have God's image reflected in them. God alone is wonderful in His saints just as the Blessed Virgin Mary proclaims: "He that is mighty hath done great things to me" (Luke 1:49). The goodness the saints possess is a gift from God alone.

When a person dies, they cross from the plane of life into the place of judgment where God will determine, based on the life the person lived, every thought, word, act, and omission, what reward is deserving for the soul. Called the Particular Judgment, "Every one of us will render an account for himself to God" (Romans 14:12). Based on one's account of his whole life, The just will enter into everlasting life (Matthew 25:46) or into hell, "For the hope of the wicked is as dust, which is blown away with the wind . . . and as the remembrance of a guest of one day that passes by" (Wisdom 5:15).

The souls of the wicked have no hope, the souls of the Faithful, by virtue of the hope in the Resurrection, can achieve eternal LIFE beyond the plane of death. Christ's act of the Resurrection is our central hope as Christians. Those wicked souls are gone from memory and hope. Catholics cannot pray to them, nor expect either their salvation or intercession. The Church teaches that we are forbidden to give public veneration to anyone who is not beatified or canonized a saint.

Canonization does not admit any one into heaven; it is only a solemn declaration on the part of the Pope that the man or woman by their holy life and the miracles attributed to the person, is already in Heaven and can therefore be venerated by the Church (The Catechism Explained 1899).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

"By canonizing some of the faithful, i.e., by solemnly proclaiming that they practiced heroic virtue and lived in fidelity to God's grace, the Church recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness within her and sustains the hope of believers by proposing the saints to them as models and intercessors." (CCC 828)

The Church points to God as the source of holiness, not man. "We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him . . . and those whom he justified he also glorified." (Romans 8:28-80, CCC 2012).

Catholics are often accused of divination because they are not invoking God directly. That God is somehow jealous if we petition someone other than Christ for help. Those who accuse however are refusing to acknowledge the intercessory role every Christian plays for one another by their prayers for them. Anyone can pray for one another, but only God holds the key to answering a prayer. God is not jealous of a person when we ask of them: "Can you pray for me?" It is a charitable thing to pray for another because as Christians we acknowledge that God alone will provide the answer to our prayer.

In 2 Timothy we read: "First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men". St. Paul still on the topic of intercessory prayer then says in 1 Tim 2:3: "This is good and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior." St. Paul says this before the verse used by many against Catholics: "For there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5). What St. Paul is actually saying about Christ Jesus being the one mediator between God and men is Christ is a unique mediator between man and God because he is the only person who is both God and man. He is the only bridge between the two, the only God-man. But that role as mediator is not compromised in the least by the fact that others intercede for us. Furthermore, Christ is a unique mediator between God and man because he is the Mediator of the New Covenant (Heb. 9:15, 12:24), just as Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant (Gal. 3:19–20). Clearly, then, intercessory prayers offered by Christians on behalf of others is something "good and pleasing to God," not something infringing on Christ’s role as mediator.

St. Luke's Gospel account states:

"And Jesus said unto them, The sons of this world marry, and are given in marriage: but they that are accounted worthy to attain to that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: for neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the place concerning the Bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him." Luke 20:34-38

In St. Paul's Letter to the Romans he writes:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" (Romans 8:35)

In Romans Ch.8 v.38 St. Paul continues:

"For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states about the saints experiencing the fullness of life in heaven:

"They contemplate God, praise him and constantly care for those whom they have left on earth. When they entered into the joy of their Master, they were "put in charge of many things."[Mt 25:21] Their intercession is their most exalted service to God's plan. We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world." (CCC 2683)

Alas, only the Catholic Church, Sacred Scripture's original author and Christ's Representative's on earth by Our Lord's own commissioning, can interpret the Books of the Bible. Only the Apostolic Church upon whom Our Lord Jesus Christ instituted with the power that what they "bind and loose on earth shall be bound and loosed in heaven" (John 20:23; Matthew 16:19, 18:18) can interpret the Bible (and appoint successors). The Church compiled the Bible in the first few centuries of Christianity and using the grace God bestowed upon them, the Church defined, and continues to define, God's revealed truth which He promised to continue teaching to the Church through the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit.

We must also concede that there were no other Christian denominations until the Protestant so called Reformation in the 16th century. Up until then, the Christian denomination was One. It was founded upon the Apostles by Our Lord Jesus Christ who entrusted the Church in their hands to act as His representatives, "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (Matthew 28:19-20)

The very last verse of the 4 Gospels ends with this concession:

"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that should be written" (John 21:25).

Our Lord Himself entrusts his teachings not just to the Apostles but to the teaching Church until the end of time:

"Judas saith to him (not the Iscariot): Lord, how is it, that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not to the world? Jesus answered, and said to him: If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him. He that loveth me not, keepeth not my words. And the word which you have heard, is not mine; but the Father's who sent me. These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you. But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you (Matthew 14:22-26).

"But I tell you the truth: it is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

". . . I have yet many things to say to you: but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth. For he shall not speak of himself; but what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak; and the things that are to come, he shall shew you. He shall glorify me; because he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it to you. All things whatsoever the Father hath, are mine." (John 16:7, 12-15)

Thus we have the Church teaching, not all the things which were said by Christ, but revealed by Christ through the Holy Ghost to His Church which he founded upon the Apostles and will be blessed with Christ's presence until the end of time.

This same Church was the governing figure that put together Sacred Scripture, those written documents composed of Books, Gospels, and Epistles that the Church authoritatively declared as the written word of God, the divinely inspired written Truth.

The canon of both the Old and New Testaments after centuries of investigation was finally settled in the year 382 at the Council of Rome under Pope Damasus I. It was never challenged until Martin Luther and the Protestant so called Reformers who, acting as their own authority changed the canon of of Scripture to fit their new theology on such things as salvation, faith, and wholesale denial of the sacred priesthood.

Our Heavenly Father, throughout salvation history, gave special authority to men. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judges, Kings, and Prophets represented the Covenant. When Christ came to establish the new Covenant he proclaimed "Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17). He continued to point to the Church as God's guiding light with the Apostles as God's new representatives:

"And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican. Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven" (Matthew 18:17-18).

And so it is that the Apostles with Peter, the first Pope, as their chief Apostle, have lived true to Christ's commission of binding and loosing on earth by defining Church doctrines and passing on their authority until the end of time:

"Jesus saith to them: But whom do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven." (Matthew 16:15-19)

"Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Matthew 28:20).

Thus, the Church condemns divination which conjures spirits of the dead (CCC 2116). Whereas, in the same authority vested upon Her by Christ Himself, has definitively ascertained certain souls that have entered Eternal Life and declared them saints in Heaven. The formal act of canonizing a saint, is within the Church's revelation by the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete to employ Her God-given authority of binding and loosing.

A man can invest his own money in the market himself directly or through a financial adviser. Without consulting with a financial adviser, who sees the market clearer than we and is in constant contact with the market unlike ourselves, the investor risks making a poor investment that will not bring the returns he desires. A financial adviser then can wisely place our money to provide the best return for our investment. In the same way, the saints can place our petitions before the throne of God all the while submitting to His decision and His almighty power. The saints do not answer our prayers, but rather God does. Compared to the saints in Heaven we have a less clear understanding of how to present our petitions before God because we do not stand before the throne of Him Who we depend on for salvation. However the saints do, and have God's favor as they are standing before His throne. They would therefore wisely present our prayers to God in a more suitable or fitting delivery.

Catholics can venerate the saints, including asking for their intercession. One day we may be united with them in God's Heavenly Kingdom and thus we are united to them, even now, in a mutual love (Romans 8:38). The Catechism Explained tells us that both they and we belong to the same great family whose father is God; petitioning the saints does not betray want of confidence in Christ our great Mediator, but rather distrusting ourselves in that we, unlike the Saints who behold the Beatific Vision, can have recourse to a lesser mediator whose prayers will have greater weight with Him than our own.

Obama Shifting Strategy, Not Policy on Abortion

American liberals: you were duped again! Obama got elected, he got the power he wanted, now he doesn't need to "be a uniter" like he promised. Tyrants act more like their crafty selves once they get into office. Their time spent trying to earn your trust is in lying, avoiding difficult questions, side stepping debates, and trying in general to look like Mr. Cleanguy who just wants you to "believe in him" and be his friend. Obama said in a Planned Parenthood let's-have-more-abortions rally that the first thing he would do once he pulled the wool over our eyes and get elected was sign the Freedom of Choice Crock - I mean Act.



But now we learn that he's changed his tune. In his self-grandising news conference marking his 100-days of office, he stated: "the Freedom of Choice Act is not highest legislative priority."

Now that he won the I-can-get-what-I-want-even-using-violence-against-a-child pro-choice vote, he's now saying FOCA is no longer his priority. Why not? He won his power, now he can drop this promise. Or is he? We can't put anything past Obama and the 'new America' he is crafting. His dodging of questions and crafting of statements has been done methodically and intentionally. His radicalism on abortion will rear its head again - just not now. Tyrants fight the American people like they do a war. They pick and choose their timing of battles always without changing their ideology. A broader analysis can be found here.

Not All Celebrities Are Left Wing Idealogs

Thank goodness, there is some sanity left in the limelight of tinseltown. While the majority of actors, singers, models, and newscasters exploit their fame to peddle the latest decadent jetsetting trendy issue of the month, others are not so easily duped by the zeitgeist. Listening to the tiresome drumbeat from hollywood about gay marriage, demanding more abortions, killing embryos for research, legalizing marijuana, attacking the Catholic Church, etc. etc. etc. to advance their popularity by adoring at the altar of the herd, some others are choosing not to follow the pack and frame their own conscience instead of letting it be framed by popular opinion.

The courage it took for Kathy Ireland to speak out against abortion in an interview is an invigorating cool breeze of fresh air instead of inhaling the usual stagnant, old, polluted, and rancid gaseous odor that exudes from L.A. Her comments touch the soul and ring with clarity. This is what the truth sounds like. We have not heard it in so long from the media that when it is finally reported, it resonates in our hearts:

“I learned that at the moment of conception a new life comes into being. The complete genetic blueprint is there, the DNA is determined, the blood type is determined, the sex is determined, the unique set of fingerprints that nobody has had or ever will have is already there.

". . . we’re all clumps of cells and the unborn does not look like a baby the same way the baby does not look like a teenager, a teenager does not look like a senior citizen. That unborn baby looks exactly the way human beings are supposed to look at that stage of development. It doesn’t suddenly become a human being at a certain point in time,"

So far, Newsmax, LifeSiteNews, and FoxNews are the only media outlets to have presented Kathy Ireland's statements. Nothing like the 'open mind' the herd kept harping on us when they were in the minority. Now that they are the political majority, their minds are quickly shut tight behind them.

For a more complete list of right leaning celebrities click here.

Pregnant Mothers Allowed to Defend their Unborn Child from Violence

Pregnant mothers can now defend their child from attackers, a Fox News Story reports:

State Sen. Glenn Coffee said the measure will allow victims of domestic violence defend themselves and their unborn children.

"Unfortunately, the unborn child is often the primary target of domestic violence," Coffee said in a statement. "Domestic violence has been acknowledged as a primary cause of stillbirths and miscarriages."

If it's inconceivable for a father to punch and hit a pregnant woman to induce an abortion then it is even more inconceivable for a mother to kill the very life she is nurturing in her womb through abortion. The natural tendency of mothers is to nurture their children. Not so, says our culture of death. America calls it a 'choice'; along with choosing green apples or red apples at the grocery store. Perhaps now, as America defines which parent can inflict death upon the unborn child, our country may ponder the question: 'is not also the unborn child the primary target of the domestic violence of abortion?' After all, Mother Teresa, a model for mothers and the modern day example of nurturing care for the unwanted said:

"America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships.

. . . And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners."

- Mother Teresa's Letter to the U.S. Supreme Court on Roe v. Wade (February 1994)

Then again addressing America:

"But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?

. . . And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.

Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today -- abortion which brings people to such blindness."

- Mother Teresa (The National Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C, February 5, 1994. Before then President Clinton and Mrs. Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and Mrs. Gore, and a room packed with 4,000 others)

"The pope is correct"

This statement was made not by a Catholic, but by an agnostic Dr. Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies and author of five books and over 250 peer-reviewed articles. The Harvard expert on AIDS prevention was responding to Pope Benedict XVI's statement that "One cannot overcome the problem [of AIDS] with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem." The Pope has received knee-jerk criticism from closed-minded trendies around the world for his comments.

Dr. Green added:

". . . the best evidence we have supports the pope's comments.

. . . There is a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded 'Demographic Health Surveys,' between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates. This may be due in part to a phenomenon known as risk compensation, meaning that when one uses a risk-reduction 'technology' such as condoms, one often loses the benefit (reduction in risk) by 'compensating' or taking greater chances than one would take without the risk-reduction technology."

Dr. Edward C. Green (Senior Research Scientist, Harvard School of Public Health and Center for Population and Development Studies, Harvard University)

To read Dr. Green's full interview click here.

Some of Dr. Green's other publications include observations such as:

"But until donors and other decision makers in AIDS programs look carefully and with an open mind at the evidence for the impact of behavior changes other than contraceptives, drugs, and medical devices, the vast majority of prevention funds will continue to go only to these risk reduction interventions" (Edward C. Green. Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries 2003).

In this book Green reveals that instead of the exaggerated aims at using medical solutions funded by major donors which have had little impact in Africa, the

"relatively simple, low-cost behavioral change programs - stressing increased monogamy and delayed sexual activity for young people - have made the greatest headway in fighting or preventing the disease's spread. Ugandans pioneered these simple, sustainable interventions and achieved significant results . . . Rather than pay for clinics, gadgets and medical procedures. In a New York Times interview, Green cited evidence that "partner reduction," promoted as mutual faithfulness, is the single most effective way of reducing the spread of AIDS."

(Edward C. Green. Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries, 2003).

In a publication where Green emphasizes sexual behavior change, rather than frivolous condom distribution, he speculates about groups that overlook behavior change as a proven prevention method:

"To summarize, we propose the hypothesis that Americans working in global AIDS tend to possess an ideology regarding sexual behavior that is influenced by the sexual revolution of the 1960s, gay liberation, and secularism" (Fear Arousal, Sexual Behavior Change and AIDS Prevention p. 257).

Dr. Green is not alone in his assessment of condoms and African AIDS prevention. According to one of the world's leading medical journals, The Lancet, author James Shelton, of the US Agency for International Development, stated in an article that one of the ten misconceptions about the fight against AIDS is that condoms are the solution:

". . . condoms alone have limited impact in generalised epidemics"

whereas controlling behavior produces measurable results:

"reductions in HIV incidence in Kenya and eastern Zimbabwe were accompanied by large drops in multiple partners . . . Truthfully, our priority must be on the key driver of generalised epidemics—concurrent partnerships." (Shelton, James D. 2007. Ten myths and one truth about generalised HIV epidemics. The Lancet. December 1, 2007. pp 1809-1811).

Book Review: The Domestic Church - Room by Room

Although I am a Roman Catholic father and not a mother, which this book is written for, I am preparing this review as its usefulness to the home, to which the father is the head and must ensure his household has the tools and resources to make his household a 'domestic church'. Authored by Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle, The Domestic Church - Room by Room offers the Catholic mother a hands-on way to sanctify, what some may refer to as, the daily grind of life. With references to Sacred Scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the words of Christ, our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II, St. Therese of Lisieux (a personal favorite of mine) and others, Donna brings spiritual meaning and strength to the mother longing for a deeper understanding of her vocation. Most striking is the author's choice of referencing our Blessed Mother in Heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary as the model of motherhood.

In the book, the author discloses that this mother's study guide works very well in a group setting for mothers, mothers-to-be, and engaged women. However, I can see where it can also work well in a private spiritual retreat. Since silent time away from the children isn't always possible and since many of us parents including myself, rely also on camaraderie for support, a group study of 3 or more would be ideal. Nevertheless, this study guide shouldn't be overlooked just because other mom's weren't available. There is a "How to Use This Study Guide" section in the beginning which provides valuable recommendations for the group setting which can be easily modified for private use.

Each chapter features room for notes that the reader can write in the answer to specific questions, ideas, or other notes that the author presents. This feature is valuable in that studies reveal that we are more likely to accomplish a task if we have first written it down for ourselves. There isn't a more important task in the world than parenting. This book leaves plenty of opportunities to hand-write your personal thoughts, goals, and ideas to give us that additional motivation.

The author emphasizes the husband's participation in the home early in the book. Chapter 2 notes that a kingdom divided itself cannot stand. This chapter offers practical direction, without micromanaging our homes, in communication, problem solving, spirituality, and more. Again there is room for notes so the goals and direction are ultimately the reader's not the author's.

This book will provoke personal challenge, generosity, and a changing of one's old habits to sow more fulfilling seeds of personal and marital growth. This book is recommended to every couple with or without children who seek to deepen their marriage and who seek climbing a higher rung of the ladder to holiness in our own 'domestic churches'.


This review was written as part of the Catholic Book Reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on The Domestic Church - Room by Room.

Happy Feast of St. Patrick!